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Category Archives: Civil Rights

As we’ve mentioned elsewhere on this blog, we hold and cherish the Second Amendment near and dear. There is a reason why the Founding Fathers placed it as the second of ten amendments—because it is extremely important. The only amendment that appears before the second pertains to free speech and the free exercise of religion.

The Founding Fathers clearly thought gun ownership to be an essential right held by a nation’s citizens and it should not be infringed by the government—as we so often see today.

Left-wing activists are relentless in their efforts to try and chill gun ownership in America and restrict it to as few people as possible.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of these radicals who thinks that everyone needs to be armed at the teeth with guns. Gun ownership is not for everyone. Some people will never purchase a gun—or even shoot one—in their entire life. While this is actually quite sad, it is all right because that is their prerogative. If you don’t want to own a gun, shoot a gun, or have guns in your home, no one should be force you to have them. Now, the other side of the token is that people should be allowed to purchase guns if they want. The same person who chooses not to own gun himself shouldn’t say, “Since I don’t like guns, you shouldn’t be allowed to have them either.”

This kind of selfish, arrogant behavior has no place in modern society. Simply because you don’t like guns doesn’t give you the right to enforce and impose your will on the rest of society. Especially when the polls consistently show pro-Second Amendment advocates to be in the majority.

Since many left-wing activists can’t ban guns completely, which is their ultimate, long-term goal, they go after much smaller things to ban. They go after certain gun and handgun accessories to ban. One of their favorite accessories to go after is 30-round magazines and pistol grips. Use these two words in a sentence around some of the more radical left-wingers and they start foaming at the mouth.

The ban on pistol grips is especially nonsensical. Pistol grips are generally added for comfort and when used on a rifle in an urban area, they usually make the gun less, not more accurate.

There was a time, and it still appears every now and then, when they are talking about banning handguns again. In New York they recently passed a ban on handguns clips over 7 bullets So if you just purchased some the best new 1911 wooden gripsfor your handgun, you better make sure you don’t have a “high capacity clip” in it. And what’s considered “high capacity” today could easily be changed tomorrow.

McKinley is a strong supporter of the second amendment of the constitution and we thought we would take the time to summarize some of our thoughts on the subject and why we agree with McKinley’s position on the second amendment.

Too often candidates frame the second amendment in a sportsman or hunting sense. While this is definitely an important byproduct of the second amendment, it is not its true meaning. The founding fathers didn’t write the second amendment envisioning a “right to go deer hunting.” Rather, the founders saw the second amendment as a protection against the usurpation of rights from the citizenry.

Remember that the American colonists had just undergone a war with what was at the time the most powerful nation in the entire world: England. The idea that government can slowly and steadily take away the rights of the citizens was fresh in their minds, as England imposed excessive taxes, quartered soldiers in American households, among countless other things. Thomas Jefferson saw this as the unfortunate trend in world history saying,

“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.”

So the true idea behind the second amendment had to do with self-defense, specifically defending oneself against a usurpatious government. And this is where discussions about individual self-defense come from. Individual self-defense is an idea that inescapably flows out of the second amendment, and intellectual gymnastics must be done in order to try and avoid this conclusion.

Modern-day gun control advocates are not at all interested in protecting the public in their gun control legislation but much more interested in disarming the public at large. Don’t think so?

Well, if you analyze any of the most recent gun control proposals, very few of them deal with things concerning public safety. For example, the president recently sought to ban “assault weapons” and 30 round magazines in an effort to keep the public safe. Well, when you consider the fact that nearly all violent gun-related homicides in America occur with handguns, what good will banning certain long guns do? The short answer is not much.

In fact you look at the data, most of America’s violent and dangerous gun crimes are committed in areas with the strictest gun laws, specifically in large urban areas, areas that tend to be extremely liberal. Many of these areas have implemented policies exactly related to what the president has proposed and they are no safer as a result of them.

Fortunately, McKinley recognizes the true reason behind the second amendment and has pledged to help expand federal “right-to-carry” laws. These laws help frequent travelers like truck drivers who find themselves going across state after state line keep track of where they can and cannot bring their firearms. Right now, a truck driver needs to check the books every single time he crosses a state line to make sure that that state honors the permit issued from his home state. Either that or he needs to obtain a permit in every state, which can be extremely costly and time consuming. “Right-to-carry” laws help eliminate this confusion.